Google

More cities get Google Maps street view

Google has added four more cities to its Maps street view: San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando, Fla. San Diego is getting the same high-resolution imagery treatment that Google gives San Francisco; I'm not sure why. I asked Google about this and this is the response I got:

"As you probably know, Street View imagery is gathered by Google and a third-party data provider. Imagery in San Diego, like San Francisco, was gathered by Google. Our focus is on providing coverage for as many cities as possible; I don't have any additional details about our imagery … Read more

Japanese group not pleased with YouTube's copyright plans

A group of Japanese entertainment companies is criticizing Google for not doing enough to keep pirated material off YouTube.

The group also said that it wants Google to disclose more details about the technology it plans to use to protect copyright and said the search company was taking too long in unveiling the technology, according to The Associated Press.

"YouTube has to stop how it runs its site and get rid of the illegal clips. We want them to reset the service," composer Hideki Matsutake is quoted as saying at a press conference in Tokyo on Thursday.

"… Read more

Google Maps now includes traffic in drive time

We all know that online maps have their faults. One of them is that they tend to be optimistic.

Google and Yahoo maps offer real-time traffic data with color coding on the map of the congested areas. But we all knew that the driving time given on the map was not reliable because it wasn't factoring in the actual traffic conditions.

Well, Google has fixed that. Now, Google Maps offers a time estimate if driving in heavy traffic, such as rush hour.

For instance, if I plan to drive from the CNET offices in downtown San Francisco to Google'… Read more

Canadian group opposes Google-DoubleClick deal

The latest group to chime in on Google's proposed $3.1 billion acquisition of ad firm DoubleClick is the--get ready because this is a long one--Canadian Internet Policy & Public Interest Clinic at the University of Ottawa, to be referred to as the CIPPIC going forward.

The CIPPIC is asking Canadian regulators, the Competition Commissioner, to be exact, to review the Google-DoubleClick deal. Like others before it, the CIPPIC alleges that the merger would prevent or at least significantly lessen competition in the market for online targeted advertising because of Google's dominance in keyword search and DoubleClick's … Read more

Google wants to talk with you on your mobile

So the rumors were true. Google is getting into mobile. At least, that's what the Wall Street Journal is reporting today.

Mobile makes sense for Google (lots of future money there), but I wish it felt it could get the same effect by investing in an open-source browser, rather than rolling its own:… Read more

Google's ad strategy dissected

Google invited a few journalists to the Googleplex on Tuesday to meet with Susan Wojcicki, vice president of product management for the company's advertising programs. She didn't make any big announcements (much to the chagrin of fellow attendees), but she talked about the industry and reminded us that online advertising isn't going away anytime soon.

"The (core ad) business we have is a huge business, and it is still growing at a healthy rate," she said in response to a question about concerns that Google is a one-trick pony. "We expect to continue to … Read more

Google's Schmidt pays Capitol Hill visit

Earlier this week, we explored the political assault on Google bubbling up from an unlikely mix of companies and consumer groups--and noted none of its top executives had paid any recent personal visits to Capitol Hill in support of their company's practices.

Well, we may have spoken too soon.

On Thursday, Google CEO Eric Schmidt descended on Capitol Hill for meetings with a number of members from both chambers, the firm's Public Policy Blog reports. The list of seemingly wide-open topics included "health care, patent reform, immigration, privacy and consumer issues."

So what about the … Read more

Google sued over North Carolina tax exemptions

It's pretty common for large companies to get tax breaks and other incentives to expand their operations in U.S. cities and states. Apparently, things aren't going so well for Google in North Carolina though.

First, there was the charge that the search giant tried to silence North Carolina politicians as the parties negotiated the deal. Under the agreement, Google will invest around $600 million and employ more than 200 people in a data center in Lenoir in exchange for tax breaks worth at least $89 million over 30 years.

Now, a libertarian advocacy group is challenging those … Read more

Underscores are now word separators, proclaims Google

I got to enjoy Matt Cutts live and in person on Saturday speaking to the WordPress bloggers and fans at WordCamp 2007. Matt was in top form, witty as ever. The session was blogged by numerous folks. The sessions were all recorded, so, we hope, we should see a video of Matt's session surface online pretty soon. Matt said he'd probably be posting his Powerpoint to his blog, assuming he gets approval from Google's PR department.

One key development that Matt shared with the audience was that underscores in URLs are now (or at least very soon … Read more